Cost of funeral/plot

[Anonymous]

I’m another one who just doesn’t get the whole cemetery thing in this day and age. Dead is dead and you can talk to dead people anytime, anywhere - they only live on in your mind, after all.

I hope in the very near future we will all be planted in sackcloth under saplings so we can nourish the earth rather than further degrade her - even cremation is an environmental assault.

[Anonymous]

It cost me $25k for everything.

[Anonymous]

My parents bought 6 small lots to bury the ashes in Oak Hill cemetery for themselves and children/spouses. They have cash to pay for their own funerals.

It will be nice for me to have somewhere to visit/place flowers. Our children will also have just one place to go if they want to.

[Anonymous]

If Jewish, in the DMV, and interested in relatively traditional Jewish funeral practice (no embalming, etc), there is a community contract
https://www.jewishfuneralsdc.org/

[Anonymous]

If they don't have the money, then their wishes should be quite frankly irrelevant. Again -- the person being buried is dead and cannot care by definition. Funerals are for the living, and I'm all for funerals/memorial services, but we shouldn't be suckered into paying a ton of money to the funeral home racket industry.

[Anonymous]

I recently had to help my mother with this for my father. I knew costs would be expensive, but was still very shocked.

This was in Virginia, not NOVA but about 2 hours away. My father was cremated, but you still have to buy a box they put the body in that gets burned, then the urn, storage, getting death certificate, etc all in was about $8,000. My mother chose this particular funeral home under duress in the ER 5 minutes after my father tragically and suddenly died IMO but I don't think they scammed her. It is just someone told us later that if we had called the Virginia Cremation Society (I believe there is a cremation society for each state), they can coordinate and it is much cheaper.

My mother already owned the burial plot, she bought it a very long time ago. She has not made any arrangements to bury my father's ashes and instead has opened the urn and the bag and spread some of my father in random places over the last 2 years (I have no control over this). But I believe in order to have the urn buried the cemetery said it would be $3,000. Not sure about the headstone.

[Anonymous]

Home burials are legal in most states so it's interesting more people don't opt for it. I think I want to go that route.

[Anonymous]

anyone have any sense of how much the green/natural burials are? I guess you just sort of decompose? Some places compost you?

[Anonymous]

You could call or email Serenity Ridge and find out, or google green burials in your state. Serenity Ridge has plots for bodies as well as for cremated remains. I haven't been there, just googled.

https://www.serenityridgemd.com/

[Anonymous]

Costco has caskets for comparatively reasonable prices.

[Anonymous]

https://www.serenityridgemd.com/

[Anonymous]

You can contract directly with a cremation business. No need for a funeral home.

Our parent died and cremator took them, did death certificate, and we went to cremation office for ashes. If we didn’t pick up ashes, they would have disposed of.

It was around $1,300.

At a later date, we had a service and ashes at church (an additional cost). No rush and way cheaper.

Other parent pre-paid for same cremation service. Which included providing all info needed for the death certificate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Home burials are legal in most states so it's interesting more people don't opt for it. I think I want to go that route.

Be aware that this might affect your real estate value negatively if it’s noted in sale info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why spend the money on a burial and a plot, whether or not they have the money? You might as well set that money on fire. Between the embalming, the coffin, and the concrete vault it's an environmental nightmare. And to do what? Preserve a body for *slightly* longer so we don't have to face the squick factor of ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all bodies decompose? And forget about flying a body across the country.

Cremation is a step up both cost-wise and environmentally, but it's still pretty impactful given the fuel use and the greenhouse gases, not to mention the mercury in any fillings that might get aerosolized.

There are cheaper and greener ways to go, such as a burial plot in a green cemetary (no embalming, you're buried in a simple wooden box or a shroud).

But overall, money should be spent on the living, not the dead. And I'm not talking about maximizing an inheritance -- with my mom, who doesn't have a whole lot of money so I'm never inheriting, she and I would both rather if money that might have been spent on a burial etc. went to a charity instead. Leave the world a slightly better place than you found it.

I agree with what you say theoretically. I don’t like my in laws at all but their wishes are to be buried in an actual cemetery. So wdyd then?

Since they are your in laws, likely not your call. But they will be dead and won’t ever know. Do want you want.

[Anonymous]

Did either of them serve in the military? Even just a few years?
They will qualify for a plot at a military cemetary.